In terms of specification, trends, engine type and applications, the Target Drone Market industry is on an exciting curve. One can then observe that, from generally used by air-force for anti-aircraft target practice during training; henceforth Target Drones are now capable of various other operations like reconnaissance, decoy, research and development of various weapons and targeting systems, tracking, monitoring and more.
For those who are unfamiliar, Target drones are autonomously or remotely
guided unmanned aircrafts used for various defense operations. These are
generally propelled by reciprocating, rotary or rocket engines. These drones
are of various size and specifications that define the level of threat imposed
by actual target they are imitating to.
According to Research and Markets, Developments are on their way for defense
grade autonomous operations of target drones like take off, landing, target
following, return to base and so on.
The firm also reveals that, due to strict regulations the OEMs are
constrained to limited domains but owing to huge scope in future applications
the developments are not being stalled. Some of the major aircraft
manufacturing units are converting retired combat aircrafts into target drones.
Boeing converted retired QF-16 to full scale aerial target drone with higher
capabilities, replacing the existing QF-4 fleet.